Historical Sources, Major Causes of Revolutionary War

Content Area: Social Studies, & Technology 

Grade Level:6^th – 8th

Objectives with Illinois Learning Standards:

	Ask historical questions and seek out answers from historical sources (e.g., myths, biographies, stories, old photographs, artwork, other visual or electronic sources) (16.A.1b).
	Identify major causes of the American Revolution and describe the con­sequences of the Revolution through the early national period, including the roles of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin (16.B.2b.).
	Explain how and why the colonies fought for their independence and how the colonists’ ideas are reflected in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution (16.B.3b).

Strategies/Techniques:

The idea of the project is for students to use books to gain information about the Revolutionary War and create PowerPoint presentation to present to the class.  They students will use books that the have found in different libraries or other sources to gain knowledge about their particular area of interest.  The teacher’s main focus is to get children to use books to find information relevant to there projects.

As the teacher make the students okay the topics they choose with you because you don’t want the whole class researching the same topic.

Materials:

	Microsoft PowerPoint
	Reference Materials for the Revolutionary War
	Overhead that a computer is hooked up to and screen to present PowerPoint
	Scanner is optional

Anticipatory Set:

	The anticipatory set for this lesson would be the numerous reference books from the library or other sources for the children to get information to use in their presentations.
	Some previous knowledge from the students about the Revolutionary War could also be used to help present the lesson to the students.

Development:

	Discuss project, including rubric requirements.
	Students research information from the Revolutionary War.
	Mini-lessons on how to choose important information and noting sources used are taught before work on the slide show is begun.
	After students have sketched out their plan for their slide show, being constructing the show using PowerPoint.  If students know how use a scanner, allow them to scan relevant pictures, or ask the teacher to scan them and save them to be used on their presentation
	Students present the slide show to the class (computer grade presented at that time).  Students save their work to the network file or to a disk, and give to the teacher for rubric assessment.

Closure:

The lesson would come to a close after all groups/students have presented their lessons to the class.  After all lessons are present the teacher may wish to reinforce certain important facts/figures that occurred throughout the war.

Modifications/Adaptations:

	To modify the lesson for a class that may not be able access computers the teacher could allow the students to give a presentation with the group setting important information on a display board.
	If working in groups isn’t necessary for your classroom students may be able to do this individually and create a PowerPoint presentation if they wish or simply just give a presentation on an important part of the American Revolution that they researched.

Extensions:

	The teacher could require the students to also type a report based on the information that their group did research on.  This would also bring Language Arts to be a larger report of the lesson.
	After all the students have finished their research allow for them to create skits from various topics about the American Revolution.

Technology:

	This lesson definitely incorporates technology because of the use of computers into creating a PowerPoint presentation.
	However, most of the content should come from different reference books about the revolutionary war.

Assessment of Student Learning:

	Create a rubric based upon what you are assessing for.
	For instance, students receive two separate grades:  One for chosen material for the slide show One for the appropriate information on the Revolutionary War.
	This will be fair because it doesn’t place an emphasis solely on one of two parts of the lesson.

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